Equality & Diversity

British music is one of the UK’s strongest assets. British artists are globally renowned and our industry contributes over £4.5bn to the British economy. It creates 145,815 full time jobs in the process.

The eco-system that supports and promotes the music economy relies on a constantly refreshed pool of young and diverse creative talent. We must ensure we attract people into the industry from all walks of life and all backgrounds, and encourage them to progress through the ranks.

Diversity is not an option for music. It is a necessity. UK Music is committed to helping music companies diversify and adopt fair and inclusive employment practices.

In 2016, to get a clearer picture of the music industry workforce, UK Music undertook the first pan-industry workforce diversity survey, focusing on gender and ethnicity. The three-month survey gathered responses from almost 3,000 people from all sectors of the commercial music industry including songwriters, producers, managers, publishers, record labels, licensing companies and live music industry.

UK Music has committed to repeat this survey annually (publishing every other year) and work with industry to put initiatives in place to create significant and lasting change where needed.

“I am optimistic that over the coming few years we will see a significant improvement. It’s not a matter of holding out a begging bowl for women and minorities in the business – it’s a matter of making people realise the industry is missing out.”Keith Harris, Chair, UK Music Diversity Taskforce